Hi there ,
Currently , I am doing some evaluation on Service Desk software with CMDB enabled . I am trying to download some software , but unfourtenately I am not able to download most of the software . It only gives some online demo .

For example CA-Unicenter Helpdesk , they will only give you the demo online , but cannot download the software .

If you go to our website and request a demo, we would want to first provide you with a quick live demo that we would schedule with you. Then, on the assumption you are interested in it, we can provide you with access to a live demo account that you use and evaluate, yourself.

I'm not trying to cause conflict and I apologize if I'm not presenting my question properly. I'm simply trying to understand, as it's my responsibility to understand my competitor space as well as what new and great ideas might be out there.

To address your question, yes, based on what we're seeing, we do satisfy more requirements for a true CMDB than any product we've been compared to or come across. If there is one that covers more requirements for a CMDB, we haven't seen it yet.

We can track "any" entity. For example: People, Places, Things (all broken down to very detailed categories and derived types)

We can track any relationship between any entities (even circular).

We can track dependency details per relationship, telling us exactly how things are tied together.

We can cover 1-to-1, 1-to-Many, Many-to-1, and Many-to-Many relationships.

We know exactly how any Entities are tied together.

Obviously, this is a very short list of what a CMDB does but it does cover the basics. (You can reference many other posts within the forum for confirmation by other members.) We literally have hundreds of requirements that we've adhered to, in the design and implementation of our CMDB. But, the bullets shown above are the basics that any real CMDB will follow and it doesn't appear that ManageEngine adheres to any of them. Am I wrong about this?

FYI, if you're interested in a white paper that has a high level definition of what a real CMDB is, please contact me offline and I'll gladly send it to you.

BTW, yes, I did see your latter part of the post and I agree that for small company the tool could be helpful. However, my question was about your reference to a CMDB, as I did not find one, nor a claim to one, on their site.

In the broadest sense of storing assets, linking them up to services and providing some sort of analysis, they all do configuration, some much better than others. But don't get too hung up on CMDB when buying a service desk tool. You can't go too wrong with any of the big name brands so long as you get decent people to help implement it (never implement anything without onsite expert advice): BMC, CA, HP, Infra, Marval ..... Buy on people and price.

You can't go too wrong with any of the big name brands so long as you get decent people to help implement it (never implement anything without onsite expert advice): BMC, CA, HP, Infra, Marval ..... Buy on people and price.

I do recommend you buy on more than just brand, people, and price...

First, when you buy a tool, you must consider the following:

Will we have to deal with yearly licenses? Or, can we eliminate yearly licenses and simply pay-per-use, like in a SaaS model?

Is it ready to use or do we have to spend a significant, amount of time, money, and energy to customize it? What is the cost of waiting to customize and deploy after a long customization period?

Do we have to spend a significant amount of time, money, and energy providing infrastructure for it? Or, does all of that infrastructure automatically come with the product, such as in a SaaS paradigm?

How do we address infrastructure refreshes? Or, as in the case of a SaaS provider, do infrastructure issues completely go away?

Do we have to dedicate and train in-house people to engineer and support the tool, ultimately distracting from core business work they could be doing? Or, does the tool come with dedicated support?

How will we perform year-over-year product upgrades and maintenance? Or, does this come automatically, with the product, as part of a managed service?

How often will we have to perform product upgrades and infrastructure refreshes/upgrades?

What will the cost, time, and effort be to "integrate" this tool to others, if it is at all integrable? Or, do we buy a solution that already has all of those products built-in and fully integrated, eliminating all that cost, time, and effort?

What's the cost of doing it all ourselves (i.e. traditional software purchase) vs. the cost of having it all wrapped in a service (modern SaaS model)?

The biggest question is: How much do I get for my purchase? Features? Services? Infrastructure? People? Processes? Etc...

One of the biggest issues a modern enterprise will deal with is the tool spam syndrome, what I like to call the "Yet Another Tool" (YAT) Syndrome, which breeds "silos" (data silos, infrastructure silos, resource silos, organizational silos, process silos, etc.). A modern architect needs to understand how to either cleanly make those silos interact or tear them down, completely, and create a completely re-engineered environment.

There is a well known CIO I know for a well known international bank. He has one quote that always sticks with me... "I've been burned by brand names more than enough times to know that, many times, I will get a much better solution by the smaller companies. They're lighter, more nimble, hungry, and they don't waste their time and money on brand marketing. What you see is what you get... You buy brand when you have no other real options and risk is a big issue for you."

So, I recommend that when you purchase solutions you always look at the big picture and long term, as well as how your purchase will address your short term needs.

All the bullets mentioned by Frank are valid considerations and should be addressed when you start the search for a decent suite.
Personally I do not know the TraverseIT tool, so I cannot judge it. I can confirm however that in the past I have found both CA's Unicenter and the Infra tool to be more than decent.